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Topic: "A Christmas Story" Redux

Gordon Bachlund
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 696
From: Monrovia, CA, USA
Registered: Aug 1999

posted 11-17-2003 08:17 AM

From this morning's Orange County (CA) Register...

Monday, November, 17, 2003
'A Christmas Story' reuniting in O.C.
Cast and crew of the classic film are coming together 20 years later in Newport Beach.

By KEITH SHARON
The Orange County Register

'Tis the season of the triple- dog dare.

The tongue stuck to a frozen flagpole. The Chinese Christmas dinner. The leg lamp.

'Tis the season of the Red Ryder Carbine-Action 200-Shot Range Model Air Rifle.

Thanks to cable television and an annual 24-hour marathon, 'tis the season of "A Christmas Story," the little movie that was pulled from theaters after only five weeks in 1983, the little movie that couldn't ... until it became a holiday classic.

Thursday, at the Big Newport theater in Newport Beach, the cast and crew of "A Christmas Story" will come together again for the 20th anniversary of the release of the film. The movie is a nostalgic, but not sappy, look at Christmas and family dysfunction through the eyes of Ralphie Parker, a 9-year-old kid with a burning desire to get a BB gun for Christmas.

Ralphie's hope dims every time he hears the refrain: "You'll shoot your eye out."

Confirmed reunion guests include director Bob Clark, Peter Billingsley (Ralphie), Ian Petrella (Randy), Scott Schwartz (Flick), R.D. Robb (Schwartz) and Darren McGavin (the Old Man).

"Everybody will be happy to know I'm shaving now," said Bill ingsley, now 32.

The event is open to the public. The price of admission is an unwrapped toy that will be donated to the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve Toys for Tots Program. The cast and crew will participate in a question and answer session beginning at 6 p.m. The film will screen afterward.

The reunion will mark the only time the cast has been together since shooting in Cleveland and Canada – locations disguised to look like 1940s Hammond, Ind.

Hammond is the hometown of the late writer Jean Shepard, whose folksy story "In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash" became the inspiration for the movie, and Arnold Kunert, the Irvine film fan who put the reunion together. Kunert and Art Kirsh are partners in OCShowBiz, a production company formed to bring together the Orange County film community.

It started with a phone call. Last year, Kunert called Clark, the director.

"Hi, you don't know me, but I was born and raised in the area where 'A Christmas Story' was set," Kunert remembers saying.

Clark said, "He's the first person who brought up the idea of a reunion."

The story of "A Christmas Story" began in 1968. Clark was on his way to pick up a date when he flipped his car radio dial to a station playing a recording of Shepard, who was telling a story about a boy who was dared to stick his tongue on a frozen flagpole.

His date was angry because he was late, but he had an idea for a movie. Clark tracked down Shepard, and they had the Christmas story script finished in 1971.

Clark had been known for directing shlocky B-movies like "She Man" and cult favorites like "Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things" and "Black Christmas."

As he earned his chops as a director, he told studio executives about two stories he wanted to make.

One was about a kid who wanted a BB gun for Christmas. The other was about a sex-crazed group of high school kids.

"Porky's," the ribald high school movie that became box office gold, gave Clark clout.

Just enough to make "A Christmas Story."

Studio executives told him, "It's a sweet story, but narration is dead," Clark said.

He begged, and finally MGM gave him $4 million to make the film.

That's when he met Peter Billingsley, the first actor who read for the part of Ralphie.

After "about 8,000" other auditions, he called Billingsley back and gave him the part.

"I remember it was brutally cold," said Billingsley, who has a small role in the current film "Elf" and has produced "Made" and the cable series "Dinner for Five."

Even at 32, he likes being Ralphie.

"It doesn't get old," Billingsley said. "This movie has a profound effect on so many people. It seems to embody the American family."

"A Christmas Story" opened in 700 theaters with little fanfare on Nov. 20, 1983, and it closed five weeks later after grossing $19 million. The studio considered it a flop.

"I was stunned when they pulled it," Clark said.

The film sat on a shelf for five years, until HBO and TNT began airing it around Christmastime. Suddenly, it was an undiscovered hit.

"This phenomenon is real," Clark said. "There are plenty of families who are as sweet and sardonic as the Parkers."

Clark said he is approached constantly by people telling him their favorite scenes – the tongue on the pole, the Chinese restaurant, the leg lamp. People approached him so many times he began counting the different favorite scenes of the movie. He stopped at 42.

But what is Clark's favorite?

"The nicest moment in the film is at the end when Mom puts her arm around Dad," Clark said.